(CNN) – Amid calls for tighter restrictions on guns following last week's deadly rampage in Connecticut, Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry said at a tea party event Monday that anyone with a concealed handgun license in the Lone Star State should be able to take guns on public property – including schools.

"In the state of Texas, with our concealed handgun license, if you have been duly backgrounded and trained and you are a concealed handgun license carrying individual, you should be able to carry your handgun anywhere in this state," said Perry, who later added a person has the right to prohibit guns on their private property.
Provided they have the proper training and license, teachers should have "access to weapons in their school," Perry said. Individual school districts should be able to determine whether or not to allow firearms on their campuses, he said.

At least one school jurisdiction in Texas already allows teachers to carry guns – the Harrold school district, located 175 miles northwest of Dallas, began allowing its employees to carry guns in 2008, as long as they obtained the necessary license.

On Friday, the district's superintendent David Thweatt said the set-up meant his schools were doing everything they could to protect students.

"Is that 100%? No," Thweatt told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Nothing is 100%. But what we do know is that we've done all we can to protect our children."

The shooting Friday in Connecticut has sparked promises from several federal lawmakers to reintroduce tighter gun control measures, ranging from a reinstatement of a federal ban on assault weapons to banning the sale of high-capacity magazines.

Perry stipulated that lawmakers have a responsibility to "do everything we can to make sure that those types of evils are restricted the best that it can be," but that citizens should be wary of reactive decisions from the federal government.

"One of the things I hope we don't see from our federal government is this knee-jerk reaction from Washington, D.C., when there is an event that occurs that they come in and think they know the answer," Perry said.

On the day of the massacre, Perry requested his state's education commissioner review emergency operation plans in schools, saying it was "essential that we ensure all Texas schools are equipped and ready to carry out a strategic plan to secure the safety of students and staff in the event of a threat such as the one that occurred today."

At the event Monday, Perry also dropped a hint about his political future, including a potential sequel to his failed bid for the 2012 presidential nomination.

The Texas governor said his 2012 run, which ended January, was an "extraordinary experience," and that despite his loss, "I would do it again."

soundoff(761 Responses)

Why not fund an armed guard at every school. If obama whats to take action, start there.

December 18, 2012 11:57 am at 11:57 am |

bluegillonthefly

@momofterrors: a Tazer, really? I think you don't know much about either firearms or Tazers:

– A Tazer is a limited range weapon. It would take great skill and great luck to get close enough to a shooter to be able to use it.

– It's a single shot weapon. If you miss, or the Tazer, doesn't work, you're dead.

In short, a Tazer is not a weapon intended to be used against a person with a firearm. It is a limited-range, non-deadly weapon intended for use against a suspect who is either violent but unarmed, or armed but not with a projectile weapon. The only thing to be used against a suspect with a firearm is a firearm.

December 18, 2012 11:58 am at 11:58 am |

nothing new here

Even though I have NO problem with a respectable person owning a gun to protect their home – the fact of the matter is this;
Some people, like Perry, want full rights to guns. But People like Perry also want to legislate marriage and other personal issues.
People like Perry also want to fully legislate the use of vehicles, and natural products like alcohol and marijuana.
People like Perry want to legislate and control Big Pharma.
It's a double standard. People need to wise up, and start dealing with these Tea Party people at their own level.

December 18, 2012 11:58 am at 11:58 am |

Jon

The President wants to examine the gun laws and perhaps make changes. It is hypocrisy to me that he makes these comments in public, yet his drone strikes have killed more than 60,000 innocent women and children.

I'm not trying to get into a debate on gun laws, but concealed handgun licensed (CHL) citizens obey the law. If a bar has a 51% sign, we leave the gun outside. If a restaurant of movie theater has a sign No Guns, we either leave the gun or frequent another business.

In Texas, a licensed concealed handgun citizen cannot bring a gun into a school. Period. We don't. CHL citizens have been background checked, vetted and fingerprinted.

I don't own an Assault Rifle and frankly, don't believe they are necessary, for me.

I rarely agree with the demagoguery of Gov Rick Perry, but this has merit. These sick and twisted shooters hit soft targets where they know there will be no resistance and sufficient time to conduct their evil before first responders can arrive.

December 18, 2012 11:59 am at 11:59 am |

vic , nashville ,tn

Same old Rick Perry we seen GOP primaries

December 18, 2012 12:00 pm at 12:00 pm |

Lynda/Minnesota

"The same day as the shooting someone ran into a school in China and knifed 20 kids"

One assumes the parents of those children will be eternally grateful it was only a knife. No doubt China is handing out knives to all their teachers. You know ... just in case.

December 18, 2012 12:00 pm at 12:00 pm |

mattzuba

So there have been just over 45 school shootings since 2008, all of which in schools that are marked as Victim Disarmament Zones (Gun Free Zones for those that don't understand big words), and of those 45, none included the school in Texas that allows weapons by staff on campus... odd, I would have thought at least one of those would have involved teachers shooting each other in the hallways, or shooting their students for misbehaving... /sarcasm

'Dennis' (December 18, 2012 11:47 am at 11:47 am) it is easier to buy an assault weapon today than it is to get affordable mental health care. And you want to do away with the assurance that everyone can get access to health care?

December 18, 2012 12:03 pm at 12:03 pm |

matt GA

Id hate to admit it but putting these "highly trained" officials in schools and in insitutions would still result in this massive gunfight. its the same whether its a cop or a civillian, and i know alot of people who can shoot a pistol straighter than a cop can with rifle... its unfortunate that this is the reality, once someone pulls out a gun, that school is not a school anymore, its a battle ground. there will be casualities and the best we can do is damage control. Here is a statistic for you. On average causualties when the suspect is subdued or incapictated by a CIVILLIAN: 2.2 Average for a POLICE OFFICER: 18.5...
Cops can't be everywhere at once, but we, the citizens of the USA can be

December 18, 2012 12:03 pm at 12:03 pm |

Barron

Personally, I think they should forget the guns and just put exit doors in class rooms. All doors should be heavy and have a lock...like hotel doors.

December 18, 2012 12:04 pm at 12:04 pm |

silencedogood

Gun control advocates know full well it doesn't work. They have another agenda.

December 18, 2012 12:05 pm at 12:05 pm |

Bill

Why doesn't he just suggest arming every student past kindergarten?

December 18, 2012 12:06 pm at 12:06 pm |

rp

So, the teacher has a concealed weapon and tries to break up a fight at school and gets knocked down and the gun goes off and kills her or the student. What then? Are you kidding me? My daughter's teacher is 22 yrs old and just out of college. Do we really need her carryng a hand gun on her hip that maybe she is scared to death of? I just don't get it.

December 18, 2012 12:07 pm at 12:07 pm |

Vince

Hey...didn't you run for president once with all these kooky ideas. How'd that work out for you. Stay in Texas...the rest of us aren't interested in your opinions.

December 18, 2012 12:08 pm at 12:08 pm |

Kathy

Thank goodness, a politician that has some sense.

December 18, 2012 12:08 pm at 12:08 pm |

Kat

Just what we need – more guns. It's on days like this that I am embarassed to live in Texas.

December 18, 2012 12:08 pm at 12:08 pm |

F C N N

I definitely dont want the liberal, union thug teachers carrying weapons. You saw what they did in Michigan without them; violence on other citizens, destruction of public and private property. Says a lot about the dems and liberalism on many levels.

December 18, 2012 12:08 pm at 12:08 pm |

Michael Twain

As an educator with 20 years experience, I can say without a doubt that teachers should not carry guns on campus. One, there is not enough training in the world for a teacher to be ready for an incident like the one last week in Newtown. Even though I was raised around guns and have quite a bit of experience with guns, my number one priority is keeping my kids safe in the classroom, not running around the school trying to take out a gunman. Two, it will only take one teacher to have his/her gun lost or stolen for a tragedy to happen. Three, more guns is simply not the answer.

December 18, 2012 12:08 pm at 12:08 pm |

yogi

Says cowboy Rick from the state of "Smoke 'm out shoot 'm up".
Americans have an obscene fascination with guns. The sole purpose of guns is to kill, and what is so fascinating about that? It is also about time to completely ignore the NRA and their obscene grip on the congress. Enough is enough!
Violence is glorified by millions, and the only reason that violent movies and video games are being produced is that there is a big market for these products. A 20 year old has beed exposed all his life to violence on tv and in the movies, and the result is: junk in, junk out. It is baffling that people always ask "why?"after another massacre. It seems that civilization is far away from Ghandi's ideals of non-violence.

December 18, 2012 12:09 pm at 12:09 pm |

Anonymous

Perry needs to allow enough funding for there to be one armed police officer at every public school campus, not just high schols,then teachers could just focus on teaching

December 18, 2012 12:09 pm at 12:09 pm |

NufSed

Since massacres are usually in places the perp knows are gun free, maybe a warning sign posted in those places similar to "Beware of the Dog" would deter violence since he wouldn't know if the threat was true or not.

December 18, 2012 12:09 pm at 12:09 pm |

matt GA

to bluegillonthefly

I would like to inform you that it takes 9 minutes on average for any kind of emergency vehicle to reach a cite of an emergency. This helps your case so just giving you alittle insight. I remeber i was lifeguarding once and we had to dial 911 and my freind had ordered pizza 10 minutes before, and the pizza delivery man arrived before the Ambulance... I know most of you will not beleive that or scoff but im telling you that we have a problem with the way our contries hande emergencies.

December 18, 2012 12:10 pm at 12:10 pm |

DN

The defense of availability of assault weapons is to defend against tyranny from out government. Think about that for a moment.

Set aside the level of paranoia there, unless people can buy surface to air missiles and tanks, for example, an assault weapon won't do anything against our government IF it decided to rise up against. Second, just who would be coming after us? The military? In your irrational paranoia, are your forgetting that the same military of which you speak are our family, friends, and neighbors?

The biggest irony is that the very same people who fear our government coming after us, are the people who would be doing it. It's registered Republicans who are expressing this need for assault weapons, and the majority of our military our registered Republicans!

December 18, 2012 12:10 pm at 12:10 pm |

Jim Andekaigamisoumalaka

Is there a process to evaluate Gov. Perry? Because it has to be quite dangerous to have a psychopath as governor... Maybe his family could suggest a panel to evaluate his mental state? I mean he must be psychotic unless he is just high on drugs... is that even legal in Texas?